


Shall We Play?

by SvengoolieCat



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 2017 Secret Santa Exchange, Christmas, Fluff, Gen, Shakespeare, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 23:30:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13134459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SvengoolieCat/pseuds/SvengoolieCat
Summary: “I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick. Nobody marks you,” Q proclaimed testily from his stronghold in the middle of Q Branch.“What, my dear Lord Disdain! Are you yet living?” Tanner snarked back.Q and Tanner use Shakespeare to defuse tension in Q Branch after a rough mission gone bad. This gives the head of Psych an idea for Tanner's Secret Santa gift.





	Shall We Play?

 

 

“I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick. Nobody marks you,” Q proclaimed testily from his stronghold in the middle of Q Branch.

“What, my dear Lord Disdain! Are you yet living?” Tanner snarked back.

Dr. Ken Fairchild squinted from one to the other. In all his dealing with the Quartermaster, he’d rarely seen the man less then professional, but he wore his snootiness well. The head of Psych cast a weather eye around at the minions and executives. It had been a difficult mission, requiring the near constant support of two 00s, one of which had been carried off to immediate surgery. The fact that Ken had been invited to observe meant it was particularly awful—and if 003 survived, Ken would have a hell of a time with him. The tension in the room was edgy, slow to drain even though it was over. Even Q, the epitome of icy indifference, and laid-back Tanner wore the signs of stress in the set of their mouth and the lines around their eyes.

“Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.”

“Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for I love none.”

Q sniffed. “A dear happiness to women. They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”

The psychiatrist thought there was something familiar about the exchange. Clearly, Q was no lady, and Tanner’s name was not Benedick.

“Much Ado About Nothing,” Moneypenny said. She’d abandoned her high heels long ago, and was sitting on the edge of a desk, cracking open a bottle of water. “They do this. Sometimes.”

“I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer,” Tanner told Q. “But keep your way, in God’s name, I have done.”

“You always end with a jade’s trick. I know you of old,” Q accused him.

“And that is the sum of all,” said Mallory. He looked tired, but the lines around his eyes eased. Ken looked at Moneypenny who smiled tiredly and picked up her shoes in one hand.

“Nerds,” she said. “I am surrounded by theatre nerds.”

“Not surprising, I suppose,” Ken said.

“I guess not.” Her gaze wandered over his shoulder. Ken felt the prickle on the back of his neck that meant a 00 was near. After almost two decades at MI-6, he’d never quite lost his very healthy respect for those agents. He tried to help them the best he could, but how much can one do for a trained, isolated, and usually psychopathic killing machine? The most he could hope for was providing them with a bit of stability.

Sure enough, 007 was gliding through the branch like a shark in the shallows, making his way to the Quartermaster. He was dressed down, for him. Instead of the three-piece suit sharp enough to cut diamonds, he wore nice jeans and a button-down with a jumper. He had the Quartermaster’s messenger bag over one shoulder, and his hands in his pockets.

If Ken didn’t personally know and fear the man, he’d think he looked a bit…cuddly?

Q and Tanner quit snarking at each other and grinned broadly. The tension in the room had eased.

Turning to the room at large, Q smiled at his team. “Good work, everyone. I’m sure the agents appreciate your dedication; I certainly do. For those of you going off shift, sleep well. Those who are staying, please keep a weather eye on our people.”

The minions shifted and settled, smiling. Q might be young, but Ken’s own interactions with him had revealed a spine and nerves of steel. The praise was well earned, and the minions preened a bit. Q looked over his shoulder to where 007 quietly stayed at parade rest, and his mouth quirked a bit at the corner.

Ah, yes. MI-6’s best kept open secret. Ken wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole and a court order.

Tanner dropped back to talk to Ken.

“003,” he said.

“003,” Ken said back. “Once he recovers physically, we’ll have to discuss his exit from the 00-program. He’s close enough to the mandatory retirement age.”

“Fuck,” Tanner said, eloquently. The stress that had melted away during his Shakespearean snark-off with Q reappeared. He pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes like he could squeeze out a reasonable answer. “I need a beer.”

 

***

Ken knew as well as anyone that working in the service of Queen and Country could chew a person up and spit them out. He’d seen plenty of agents wash out or eat bullets because of it. He tried not to let it follow him home—compartmentalization was key. Work and home. Routines. Not locking himself away in an ivory tower. He tried to take the wife on date nights, help the kids with homework, take up hobbies like gardening.

Didn’t mean it always worked.

By time Ken shuffled home, it was going on three in the morning. The house was quiet, a counterpoint to the gunshots and yelling and hard typing that had seemed to go on for hours in Q branch.

He poured himself a whiskey neat, and sat down at his desk. It was too quiet. Too peaceful. The knowledge that 003 might lose half his fingers on his left hand swirled around him. What do normal people do when they can’t sleep in the middle of the night because life is haunting them?

He looked over at the Christmas tree in the corner. Well. The wife shopped. Said it was a stress reliever. He remembered the crumpled paper with a single name written on it. He’d just glanced at it and shoved it in his pants pocket, and promptly forgotten it in the chaos of the afternoon and evening.

To Amazon he went.

 

***

Tanner shuffled into his office, early Monday morning. There were two things that hadn’t been there when he left work on Friday. On his desk was a shiny rectangular package, neatly wrapped. Next to it, a 6-pack of his favorite beer, with a bow stuck on it.

He leaned out to his secretary.

“Someone left something on my desk.”

“Secret Santa,” his secretary said. He kept tapping on his tablet. “And no, I’m not telling you who it was. You’ve got ten minutes before your meeting with Mallory and the PM, sir.”

Tanner made a disgruntled noise. “Maybe it’s a bomb.”

“Try not to sound too hopeful.”

Tanner went back in his office. Trying not to feel like a kid at Christmas, he tore off the wrapping paper.

In his hands he held a game called Bards Dispense Profanity—a sort of Shakespearean version of Cards Against Humanity.

“Oh, brilliant,” he said.

 

***

Ken wasn’t sure how he ended up here. It was another late night at MI-6, but the circumstances were quite different. A table in the commissary had been commandeered, some illicit bottles of beer as well as a variety of snacks had appeared.

“Nerds,” Moneypenny said. “All of you.”

“Nerds who somehow got the hot, popular girl to hang out with them,” Q said.

“I do believe that’s called ‘living the dream,’ Q,” Bond said. There was suddenly a half-empty bottle of Statesman whiskey in Bond's hands, and Ken had no idea where it came from. Trust Bond to be able to pull liquor from thin air like a magician conjures a rabbit.

“The hot girl is secretly a nerd,” Tanner said.

“I object to being called the hot girl,” Moneypenny said.

“Oh, no worries, I was referring to Bond.” Q said. “Honestly, why _are_ you here?”

“Someone has to tuck you into bed with your cats, Q.” Bond beamed and took a pull straight from the whiskey bottle like a heathen. “I volunteer as tribute.”

“I’m mildly put out that I’m not the hot girl in this scenario,” Mallory said. “I am your boss, after all.”

Tanner shuffled the cards in front of him. “Dear God, you’re all pretty, pretty nerds. Shall we play?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Sorry this is late, RL intervened, as it is wont to do at inconvenient times.
> 
> 2\. There is actually a game called "Bards Against Profanity" because I found it at Barnes & Noble and was all sorts of enchanted with it. 
> 
> 3\. Not beta'ed so all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> 4\. Happy holidays, my fellow lovely nerds!


End file.
